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Dear Microsoft, Thanks For The 0xB16B00B5

In a not-so-surprising turn of events, Microsoft has fessed up to the now infamous ’0xB16B00B5? (Big Boobs) string of hex that was supplanted into the Linux kernel.

In a not-so-surprising turn of events, Microsoft has fessed up to the now infamous ’0xB16B00B5? (Big Boobs) string of hex that was supplanted into the Linux kernel.

While the prank is certainly very funny, it is not original. 0xB16B00B5 is a common L337 expression, or ‘Hexpression’, in the technical community. It is also noted on Wikipedia‘s wiki entry as a “Notable Magic Number”, required of Linux guests running in Microsoft’s Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtualizer. That said, the discovery of these Big Boobs should not come as a surprise as it has been hiding in plain sight, awaiting public scrutiny since 2011.